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It's not a useless statement. Memorisation speed is an incredibly personal thing and how one person memorises a particular piece will not have any bearing on how best you are to memorise the same piece.

It's not a useless statement. Memorisation speed is an incredibly personal thing and how one person memorises a particular piece will not have any bearing on how best you are to memorise the same piece.

It's not a useless statement. Memorisation speed is an incredibly personal thing and how one person memorises a particular piece will not have any bearing on how best you are to memorise the same piece.

True, but it's rather relative. As in, how difficult is the memorization of the finale relative to other more tonally obvious pieces? I didn't ask "how hard will it be for me to memorize this?".

It's not a useless statement. Memorisation speed is an incredibly personal thing and how one person memorises a particular piece will not have any bearing on how best you are to memorise the same piece.

True, but it's rather relative. As in, how difficult is the memorization of the finale relative to other more tonally obvious pieces? I didn't ask "how hard will it be for me to memorize this?".

It's not "rather relative" at all because it still boils down to how an individual memorizes; the harmonic clues in the score that help one to memorize may be less obvious to one who memorizes by thinking in a more "scalar" manner as opposed yet again to someone whose memory is helped more by seeing patterns that others don't see or whose memory is helped by "finger memory." How can one put a quantitative value on an answer to the question?

I do see what all of the above mean, but I will take a different route here...

I think that if one can actually provide a 'level of difficulty' for most rather known works (such as the RCM or ABSRM or other levelling system) and if we can agree that individuals can have different strengths and weaknesses in our playing, perhaps it's not absurd to provide a fair and simple reply to this new guy, with the older avatar, who looks familiar and posts even more familiar threads, but calls himself Joe!

I do see what all of the above mean, but I will take a different route here...

I think that if one can actually provide a 'level of difficulty' for most rather known works (such as the RCM or ABSRM or other levelling system) and if we can agree that individuals can have different strengths and weaknesses in our playing, perhaps it's not absurd to provide a fair and simple reply to this new guy [...]

No?

No, because I don't see it as a "fair and simple" response. The other "levelling systems" you speak of are based on overall difficulties, both technical and artistic; the question here is "how difficult to memorize." I think that puts the question in another category entirely, not covered by overall grading systems.

Grading systems, as I know them, are conventionally - although not entirely - grading pieces according to primary technical difficulties where such things as octaves, arpeggios, repeated notes, thirds, etc. (you name it!) are more or less quantifiable. I don't think that memorization is a quantifiable component, and certainly not part of grading systems.

Bruce, I don't see why it isn't relative. I would say it's pretty objective that the ballades are harder to memorize than say... the 4th prelude in E minor. So in other words, the ballades are harder to memorize relative to the 4th prelude. No? Why can't the same be applied to sonata 2 finale?

If I told you that I have had less difficulties memorizing,Rach 2, Chopin's 1st ballade, the Waldstein sonata, Chopin's third and fourth scherzi, the Kapustin variations, than memorizing some tiny Scriabin preludes, or a slow Brahms intermezzi, would you believe me? Cause it's true and you missed the big capital IMO in my original post.

When you work on a big piece, you have bigger issues than trying to memorize the notes, so that works itself out. I've never had to consciously put work into memorizing a large or technically challenging work.

Now you've changed your argument. The Chopin e minor prelude is not on the same level as brahms intermezzi or scriabin preludes. I was just wondering if you truly thought it was more difficult to memorize the prelude than any one of the ballades.

Also I recommend you not put such final words like "false" in a sentence you deem to be just your opinion.

Well, comparing the E minor prelude to say the G sharp minor Scriabin one. Or the E major, or the G flat major (all from op.11). They're all one page, slow, roughly the same form as the Chopin. Why isn't that a fair comparison? I'll admit that the Brahms is more of a stretch...

other than being the shortest movement of the 4, for me it is the 'easiest' for fingers/brains, memorizing wasn't the issue here, it never is now I think of it, but it took me much more time to 'do' the first 2 movements, btw it isn't atonal music at all, just have a closer look.

I was about to say "if you've practiced it enough to be able to play it, the memorization shouldn't prove any problem"...then I read the last post. Easiest movement of the four? Wow. I think it's really hard to play presto and leggiero.

It is much more difficult, for me that is, to 'project' the 1st movement, to give the 2nd mov. it's drive and melancholy, than to just render the finale, let's not discuss the marche funèbre, because may be that is the biggest problem. If a pianist is capable of performing the b-flat minor sonata, his worries should be in making it stick together as a whole, a single piece in four departments, the finale just being a formality, musically and tecnically, with 'devastating' effect of course.

The only reason I'm unsure is that most of the time I don't have much idea what he's talking about.

A couple of things about how he puts it: I wouldn't flat-out say "easy," but certainly relatively easy -- i.e. compared to many other Chopin works. And btb actually sort of understates the "easiness" with his word choice: It isn't just identical "patterns," it's identical NOTES. There's just one line to learn, and no issue about inner voices, because there aren't any. If you just know how the 'melody' goes, that's all there is -- which isn't the case when there are inner voices and different notes in the lower and upper voices.

Mark_C
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Registered: 11/11/09
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Sure. But "identical patterns" can mean things that are less simple than identical notes. That's why your phrasing understated the simplicity and why this is relatively 'easy' to memorize. But no worries -- your post was way closer to how I see it than anyone else's.